How Do We Get from Here to There?

This morning, I listened to President Bush give his final press interview.  During his initial address to the press corps, he stated that he had sometimes been “misunderestimated”.  Now this isn’t the first time he has used the term, and it isn’t the only term that is unique to Mr. Bush.  Bushisms can be found in many places on the Internet. I suspect though that many of us have used words and/or phrases incorrectly from time to time.

Regardless of how you feel about the outgoing president, I hope you’ll agree that we, as educators, should be working hard to make sure students have a sufficient grasp of word attack skills, vocabulary, idioms, etc. to be taken seriously and seen as intelligent, educated individuals.  Below are a few resources that can help.  Several sites are aimed primarily at those learning English as a second language, but would be useful even for native English speakers.  For more, check out  Larry Ferlazzo’s blog.  It’s one of my favorites for these kinds of resources.

LessonWriter – Create language arts lessons from any digital text.
Free Rice – A measure of rice is donated to the UN World Food Program for each correctly identified  vocabulary word.  Now other subjects are available as well.
Using English – Includes vocabulary, grammar, verbs, idioms and more.
http://rea.ccdmd.qc.ca/ri/Expressions – Here you can learn the meaning of given idioms.  You can also find equivalents in Spanish or French.
Journey North – Journey North includes vocabulary lessons to coordinate with their migratory wildlife activities.
Word Central – This Merriam-Webster sites provides several ways for students to practice their vocabulary skills.
WordGirl – from PBS Kids

Don’t “misunderestimate” your students.  Together, we can work to help them improve their use of the English language. You might just learn something along the way as well.